“On July 29, The Anschutz Corp.,through its affiliate Transwest Express LLC, said it had acquired the rights to develop a proposed $3 billion, 900-mile transmission line capable of moving 3,000 megawatts of power from wind farms in southern Wyoming to markets in Southern California, Las Vegas and Phoenix.”

See? Somebody is trying to get something done without asking for hundreds of billions of your money. And that brings us to the white elephant on the white mountain up in northern Northern California.

“The old Mount Shasta Ski Bowl had been built in 1958 in a huge open cirque much higher up on the southern flank of the volcano, with a lodge at 7,800 ft and lifts topping out above timberline at 9,200 ft. However, the ski area had often been in financial trouble over the next two decades, and a massive avalanche in January 1978 which destroyed the main chairlift was the finishing blow. The Ski Bowl closed permanently after that…”

So just as the risk of this Shasta project was building an expensive road to nowhere, one of the risks of the Pickens Plan is building power lines to nowhere.

How is the Anschutz Corporation’s wind energy project working out? That’s a good thing to keep an eye on when you’re considering building a Bridge to Nowhere, or a Pickens transmission grid, or things like that.